COVID CORNER
Elephant seal goes walkabout, covens cope with Covid, and more lockdown lore
WANDERING SEAL
A disoriented elephant seal wandered the streets of a Chilean seaport town after taking a wrong turning. Residents of Puerto Cisnes, 1,500km (932 miles) south of the capital Santiago, said they are accustomed to seeing the creatures offshore in the water, but were surprised to see one hauling itself down the middle of a street several blocks from the shore. Witnesses said the seal was not acting aggressively, but appeared confused and frightened. A group of police, navy officers and concerned locals used black tarpaulins to persuade the large animal to turn round and head back towards the sea.
“I was a bit startled to begin with, but because they move slowly, I calmed down and told my son to film it,” a local woman told journalists. “I’d never seen one so close up – and certainly never in the middle of town. We see these animals quite far out at sea and so we don’t know much about them. You don’t know if they’re dangerous or if they could attack someone. But what we saw here was that the animal was scared.”
Sergeant José Muñoz of the Chilean Navy said the seal had travelled quite a few blocks before being guided back to sea.
“I’d never seen one close up – and never in the middle of town”
“I want to thank the community for its huge support,” he said, assuring residents that the Navy would be conducting additional patrols to ensure the two-tonne (2,000kg) animal didn’t return to town.
Chile’s curfew, imposed at the end of March to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, has encouraged various animals to enter now-empty urban areas at night (see FT392:7). In recent months, seven cougars (mountain lions) have been captured in Santiago.
Southern elephant seals, found in sub-Antarctic and Antarctic waters, are the largest members of the 32-strong seal family. Males can measure up to six metres (20ft) in length and weigh up to four tonnes (4,000kg), while females can reach lengths of three metres (10ft) and weigh a little less than a tonne (1,000kg). For other recent seal news, see FT393:8; 391:7. [UPI]; Guardian, 7 Oct 2020.
SPOT THE BALL
In October 2020 a Scottish football match being televised with up-to-the-minute robot camera technology highlighted an unexpected technical hitch. The new Pixellot system with “in-built, AI, ball-tracking technology” employs a robot camera and is used to capture HD footage of all home matches at Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC’s stadium. This live footage is then broadcast directly to seasonticket holders’ homes while fans are not allowed to attend matches due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Unfortunately, the Pixellot software was unable to distinguish the football from a linesman’s bald head, and so the robot camera, programmed to follow the ball, kept panning to the sidelines and missing the action. Many viewers complained they had missed their team scoring a goal. Some even suggested that the club would have to provide the linesman with a toupée or a hat in future. iflscience.com, 29 Oct 2020.
PENNSYLVANIA CANDYPULT
An ingenious Pennsylvania family invented a device allowing them to dispense candy to Trick-Or-Treaters at Hallowe’en while maintaining social distancing. Vince Mak of York County explained
how his family came up with the ‘Candypult’– a catapult designed to propel candy from a safe distance – after holding a brainstorming session. “We thought we could try to come up with a creative way to throw candy at kids… safely,” he told a local TV station. “With everything going on, everyone just needs to feel happy and find something to laugh at.” [UPI] 23 Oct 2020.
WITCHES’ LOCKDOWN WOE
Welsh witches were disappointed this year because of Wales’s 17-day ‘firebreak’ lockdown (pubs, restaurants, hotels and non-essential shops remaining shut, and gatherings of people from more than one household forbidden). This meant that covens were unable to meet at Samhain (Hallowe’en), arguably the most important date in the Wiccan calendar. The lockdown has caused further difficulties for the principality’s Pagans.
Karin Rainbird, a freelance psychologist and Pagan prison chaplain, recently helped start a seven-strong Wiccan coven in Pontypridd, but explained that since she’s the only initiated member, the others need faceto-face training. “Wicca is not really something you can do online,” she said. “Training would be practical. It would be doing the sabbats, having some workshops where we practise casting the circle, identify herbs, that kind of thing.”
The 2011 UK census showed as many as 85,000 people identifying with the neopagan movement, primarily represented by Wicca and other witchcraft religions, although Heathenry and Vodou practitioners also appeared. Social media has aided the growth in popularity of these religions with younger people, with TikTok’s ‘Witchtok’, Wiccan YouTube influencers and Twitter and Instagram hashtags helping spread the word among Generation Z. BBC News, 31 Oct 2020.
SELF-ISOLATING SELF-TATTOOIST
After weeks of social distancing and lockdowns, a lot of us are starting to go stir crazy. In some cases, boredom has driven people to cut their own hair; in other cases, they’ve done so because they are shielding and unable to leave home, or because hairdressers are closed during lockdown.
Like barbers, tattoo parlours are also deemed non-essential. Chris Woodhead, 33, is a professional tattoo artist who normally works in a London studio. He began tattooing himself each day he was in quarantine during the UK’s first lockdown in Spring. At the time of reporting, he was on his 49th day of tattooing with no intention of stopping.
“The idea of tattooing myself every day through the isolation came about in a way quite naturally,” he said. “I thought it would be a good way of implementing some structure into my day, now that I can’t tattoo from the studio.”
Mr Woodhead learned his craft by giving himself 100 tattoos before he ever tattooed another person. Before lockdown, his body was already covered in nearly 1,000 tattoos, so he thought an additional 100 or so wouldn’t make much difference. He planned to keep going until he is able to return to his studio.
So far, he has tattooed himself by contorting his body, without the use of a mirror. He said the back of his legs and elbows were the most difficult areas. Ideas for new designs have come easily; his isolation tattoos included a virus, a butterfly, a tiger, a clown and a mermaid.
Mr Woodhead said his lockdown strategy has “definitely helped me get through the endless day-to-day. It’s really boring being stuck at home, and without that creative process I would be pretty lost.” However, he does not encourage anyone who is not a professional tattoo artist to try this at home. edition.cnn.com, 4 May 2020.